Daily Norseman
We still really have no idea when J.J. McCarthy will return to the Minnesota Vikings.
Will it be in Week 7 after the bye, when the Vikings take on a Philadelphia Eagles team that the Denver Broncos just tripped up? Will the Vikings have some skepticism about setting him loose against a team with such a tenacious defensive front?
Will it be in Week 8 when they face the Chargers, who are also coming off a similarly difficult loss? Would the Vikings really bring him back on a short week?
Will it be in Week 9 when they head to Detroit to take on the Lions? Or will they also take umbrage with putting McCarthy out there against the defending NFC North champions?
All of these questions come at the expense of wondering when he’ll even be healthy for sure. There are a lot of people yapping about how severe the injury was vs. what the initial thought was, and there are even more people jawing about if the Vikings are somehow hiding behind the “injury” as an excuse to give Carson Wentz a longer look at quarterback.
But what I wanted to examine was relative to other quarterbacks of his experience level, what can we reasonably expect from McCarthy when he returns?
For this piece to resonate, you’ll have to accept just one premise that I’m laying forward.
That is, that McCarthy is functionally to be considered a rookie. If you are unwilling to accept that premise, you are unlikely to accept the findings — and that’s okay. But just know that it’s the basis for this research, and how the conclusion will be shaped and formulated.
What I set out to do was to see what the average production was from rookies under center across a few different scenarios.
First, I set out to establish a few different appropriate “eras” by which to compare McCarthy. As we all know, passing has changed considerably in the last few decades. As noted in this piece on The Phinsider back in 2012, only eight quarterbacks completed 60-plus percent of their passes in 1983. Twenty did so in 2010. This season, only three of 32 teams have completed fewer than 60 percent of their total passes — the Browns (58.4 percent), Jaguars (58.3 percent) and Titans (51.8 percent).
This year, NFL passers have completed 65.9 percent of their passes — the highest mark since the forward pass was legalized. Unsurprisngly, the last three years are three of the sixth-highest seasons in that time frame for completion percentage.
We’re clearly in an era where passers are more efficient than ever, which would make comparisons too far back inapt.
Similarly, passers have a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 2.37 — the highest in the forward-pass era with the 2024 season ranking third (the 2020 season is in between the two).
So we look for gaps where leaps happened.
In 2007, quarterbacks completed 60-plus percent of their passes for the first time — and have passed that...
